


Stab wound

by sshysmm



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Book 3: Disorderly Knights, Gen, Glasgow, Hospitals, Major Character Injury, Stabbing, the band Au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2021-01-26 21:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21380923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: Lymond arrives at a Glasgow hospital to find bad news.--Written for Whumptober 2019, set in the Band AU I've been writing (see collections).--There's 31 of these ficlets and I apologise profusely for burying other work in the tags. I will *always* tag these as 'the band au' and you can usethis nifty extension (ao3rdr)to block the tag if this isn't your thing and isn't what you want to see in the Lymond tags!
Kudos: 4
Collections: Ficlets in the Lymond Band AU for Whumptober 2019





	Stab wound

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr, 8 October 2019.](https://notasapleasure.tumblr.com/post/188210952386/whumptober-8)

"There was a fight outside the club," Archie held Lymond's arm, thumb and forefinger wrapped around the thin elbow, breathing heavily as he jogged to keep up with the younger man's easy, loping stride.

He paused at a junction in the hospital corridors and Archie used the moment to make him stand and listen. "It's bad, Francis."

The extent to which the message was getting through was doubtful. In this state he seemed slippery as an eel: his sunglasses were on, and had been since before he entered the bright fluorescent tunnels. His hair was slick with sweat, crazed curls swept into darkened patterns; there were bruises on the back of his arms and, Archie thought, a streak of someone's blood smeared on his neck and jaw. Where he had been that night was anybody's guess - the band had agreed to DJ a late slot at Bonkers together, but as the night drew on, Lymond had been absent and out of contact.

Archie scrutinised him. "He was stabbed. The police havna a clue who it was, they'd already flit."

Lymond swayed impatiently, "yes, I understand. So why are we wasting time at the crossroads when it's too late to read the fine print?"

With a grunt of assent, Archie led him on.

It was a private room, and they were lucky not to coincide with Wat's visit - he was still on his way in from the islands. In the hospital's pastel pink cocoon, clashing horribly with the walls and floral bed-curtain, Will Scott's shock of red hair seemed the only thing of any vibrancy. His face was pale, even the constellations of freckles seemed sunk beneath milky skin, and his veins were blue like the shadows of his eye sockets.

Lymond paused in the doorway with the white bed and white body reflected in his dark shades, his mouth a thin, downturned slash of misery.

"He tried to break the lads apart," Archie sighed, folding his arms and looking down at the screens and tubes by the bedside. "But ye ken what it's like there."

Lymond balled a fist and thumped it distractedly against the doorframe. "Who was with him?" He managed to force the words out. He knew he should have been there. He knew Will would have been waiting around outside looking for him before they started their set, and he knew that Will would have waded fearlessly into any gangland scuffle, convinced that his height and cheerful, energetic tongue would be enough protection from the petty fights of the neds.

"Randy Bell. Adam got outside to him but he was already unconscious."

Archie did not instruct Lymond; he knew better than to push or cajole. But he waited by the unconscious patient, his eyes on his own grizzled knuckles where they wrapped around the bed rail. Lymond, for his part, waited in the doorway, struggling to come to terms with the proximity of life's fallibility and the way death clung like black mould to the shadows. But he wanted to come in, Archie knew.

When he finally removed the sunglasses and walked on rubber legs to the bedside, his eyes were dry and his pupils travelled over Will's face with sharp clarity. He leaned on the rail opposite Archie and stared at the still copper lashes. He never moved his hands, but Archie could see the gestures he intended when his gaze fell on Will's forehead, the loose gown that had slipped low off his shoulder, the limp, long fingers that lay empty, unaccountably lonely among cotton valleys and hillocks.

"Doutless he deed for Scotland's life;

Doutless the statesmen dinna lee;

But och tis sair begrutten pride

And wersh the wine o'victorie!"

Archie took up the request in those sad blue eyes and tweaked the material of the hospital gown up over Will's cold shoulder. "Wisht, he's no dead yet," he said quietly.

Lymond's stony expression rebuffed this reassurance. It was anger that made his knuckles white on the bed rail, despite the softness with which he had spoken. It would be a brave man to die in the face of all that loving fury, Archie decided. Brave or stupid.

Will Scott, he reflected, had often been both.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem is by Sydney Goodsir Smith, 'The Mither's Lament'.


End file.
